


he has me by my heart

by endquestionmark



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-15
Updated: 2012-05-15
Packaged: 2017-11-05 09:53:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’ve been compromised,” she says.  Her eyes are huge and dark; he doesn’t look away.</p>
<p>Natasha and Clint share a moment (or more, where did that figure of speech come from?), and by "moment" I mean bodily fluids, and by "share a moment" I mean fuck.  I think I just lost control of my summary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	he has me by my heart

Natasha sits next to him, her thigh warm against his. She says nothing. He just stares at the floor, perhaps for longer than he should, but he wants to make certain that the world is no longer distorted, no longer warping second by second like oil on water, viscous, nauseating.

Seconds, minutes, and he finally looks up. She’s very quiet.

“What did he do to you?” he asks finally, because he can feel it, the faint thrum of nerves, the way he can’t hear her breathing. She’s hiding. She’s the best spy in the world, and he can still tell when she’s been hiding, which is why he should expect what she says next.

“I’ve been compromised,” she says. Her eyes are huge and dark; he doesn’t look away. He knows if he keeps looking he’ll see terrible things, but that’s all right. He’s seen them before. Most of them were partly his fault. He’s a soldier, and that’s what he does - looks at terrible things, stares them down. He’ll never leave them behind, though. He can’t afford to forget them.

Compromise is one thing that Natasha is, perhaps, a little unfamiliar with; that’s all right. In war - her private war, his private war, the tiny wars that make up life as Black Widow, as Hawkeye, the blood spatters that pale next to the trenches - there is very little space for compromise. The phone rings, or it does not; the chair breaks, or it does not. He asks her a question in the tilt of his head, and he knows she sees it.

“I’ve got red in my ledger,” she says quietly, “and I’d like to wipe it out.”

Clint nods. He can understand that. His ledger is pretty damn bloody too. “Is that what he said?” he asks. “Because you know you’ve wiped it out a hundred times over, Tasha.”

“Really?” she asks. “He knew, Clint. He knew about the hospital, he knew about the girl - he knew everything.” She looks at him. “You of all people should know that.”

“Yes,” Clint says wearily. It’s going to be weeks before he can wake up without wondering if he tried to hijack the SHIELD helicarrier while he was asleep. He’s also got a hell of a headache, which is neither here nor there. _I hit you really hard in the head_ , Tasha says in his mind. Whatever works, he supposes. “It’s like - brainfreeze,” he says, and bizarrely it’s true. “It’s like the middle of my brain aches.”

“He didn’t mention there’d be a hangover,” Natasha says, barely smiling. On her it’s as welcome as a grin. When Natasha grins, it’s to show teeth.

“You’re telling me,” Clint says, and for a moment they just sit.

“He said he’d have you kill me,” Natasha says. The words are like shells in the room - big, thumping, the shock of them going right through Clint. “Slowly,” she says, “intimately,” and it’s as if she’s reciting a prayer, a mantra. “And then he’d let you see what you’d done, and then he’d kill you.”

“Well,” Clint says, slowly. The words are still resonating in his ribs, wreaking havoc. “We both know that’s wrong. Nobody’s allowed to kill me except you.”

And, strangely, that’s it. Once, long ago (was it long ago or was it merely lifetimes?) there was a fire-headed shadow, and there was an archer, and one of them saved the other, and if you asked them who was saved and who was saviour they would each give you a different answer. If Natasha ever goes rogue, she knows with every fiber of her being that it’ll be Clint following her, hunting her down, and -

\- well, Clint doesn’t have to wonder _if_ anymore, does he.

In a strange way it’s soothing. It’s good to know who’s on the other end of the blade.

“Tasha,” he says. “Natasha, you know he was lying.”

“He wasn’t, though,” she says, and the utter certainty in her voice is a terrible thing. “I know when people lie, and he wasn’t.”

“But neither was I,” Clint says, and he takes her hand, holds it between his. “You know that too.”

“Yes,” she says, and lifts their hands to her lips. She traces, gently, the bones of his hands, and presses her cheek to his fingers. “I know.”

“It’s me,” Clint says, and although it’s unnecessary, “it’s okay,” and he leans in until he feels her breath on his cheek.

It’s not, really, and she knows it, and he does too. They’re still down one engine, there’s still a god of lies running around with an infinite power source; Coulson is dead, and Bruce Banner is missing. It’s very far from okay.

“You’re lying,” she says, and tilts her head up to kiss him.

It’s far from perfect. Natasha has kissed him on rooftops and on battlefields and on assignments, but this is different - this is something he remembers, something that tugs at him like a riptide.

She bites gently at his lower lip, tugs with her teeth, and he gasps a little; when he moves to cup her face, the room lurches. She notices, of course, and presses a hand to his chest until he’s lying back on the bunk. It’s far too narrow, which is probably intentional, but she swings a leg across his hips to straddle him. He traces up her ribs, cups the curve of her breast, watches her still for a moment.

There’s not a lot of leeway with her suit, but she lets him pull the zipper down as far as he can and leans forward so he can slip a hand inside. Natasha fights dirty and gets a leg between his, which will forever be his excuse when he thumbs her nipple a little more roughly than she’d perhaps expected. She makes a high noise in her throat and reaches down to unzip his pants; she strokes him hard, waits until he bucks into her hand, and pulls away.

She strips out of her suit quickly and unconsciously, and Clint would tell her she’s beautiful, but many men have done that already. He’d rather show her.

Natasha sinks down slowly, and Clint holds onto her hips; they’ll both be bruised later, but that means they’ll be alive to be bruised. He’ll take the trade.

She rides him slowly, as if he’s precious, something not to be broken, and that’s all right, but he’s been broken a hundred times before, and right now he wants to be alive, to be fragile, to fly apart. He wants her, the sting of her nails dragging against his shoulders, her thighs around his. He sits up, ignoring the way the room rolls, and rolls his hips.

The way she moans, honest and raw, is one of the sounds he thinks his life is worth. He wraps one arm around her shoulders and uses the other to keep himself upright, and she presses down on his shoulders for leverage. It’s not fast and hard, but it isn’t slow either; there’s urgency to her movements, and Clint matches her pace, thrusts up to meet her.

She drags a hand down his chest, nails leaving red welts, and he gasps, has to close his eyes for a second; when he opens them again, she has a hand between her legs, pressing firmly, and she shudders and comes, pulsing around him. Clint gasps, rolling his hips hard, desperate for more, and thrusts up and comes, crushing her against his chest.

“Fuck,” she says, and extricates herself gracefully before her ribs snap.

“Sorry,” Clint says, flopping back down. “I’m pretty sure you just fucked the brainwashing out of me, though.”

“Hah,” she snorts, and gives him a fond little smile. “I’m getting the bathroom first.”

“I’m not coming after you in an hour,” he says. (She can clean up in one hundred and thirty-three seconds flat.) “But if Fury comes in here and reads me the riot act it’s all on you.”

“Oh, please,” she says, “you’ll be fine. Nobody’s allowed to kill you except me.”

It shouldn’t be as comforting as it is.

Clint grins and strips the bunk to clean himself up. He’ll throw the sheets out a window over, oh, Antarctica or something.

One day, she’ll probably kill him, or he’ll kill her; when it happens, he won’t be sentimental about it. That’s the way she would want it, and the way she acted proves it. It’s possibly the most romantic concussion he’s ever had.

They’re joined by a red thread, perhaps, if thread can be dripping blood, and there will always be red in his ledger, but there’s nobody he’d rather be in debt to.


End file.
